A wide range of technologies are currently used to treat, purify and/or filter water and other liquids. Many such technologies require a relatively large amount of physical space and/or require the use of consumable filters that add to operational costs. For example, many drinking water treatment applications utilize settling ponds in combination with a series of screens and filters of progressively decreasing pore size to remove suspended solid particles from water.
More recently hydroclone based filtration has been proposed to separate suspended particles from water and other fluid mediums. Hydroclones operate by introducing water into a generally conically shaped chamber to create a vortex within the chamber. Generally, the influent water is introduced near the top of a conical chamber and an effluent stream is discharged near the bottom of the chamber. Centrifugal force tends to cause heavier particles to move towards the periphery of the vortex. As a result the water near the center of the vortex tends to be cleaner than water at the periphery of the vortex. Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,632,416 describes an improved hydroclone based filtration system having a filter assembly positioned in a central region of the hydroclone. With the described arrangement, relatively cleaner water can be drawn from the central region of the hydroclone after passing through the filter. To further improve the efficiency of the hydroclone filtration, the '416 patent proposes the use of a circulating cleaning assembly to help clean the filter assembly during operation of the hydroclone.
Although existing water filtering systems and existing hydroclones work well for their intended uses, there are continuing efforts to provide improved and/or more cost effective purification and/or filtering devices that can meet the needs of various specific applications. In one aspect, the present invention relates generally to improved filter cleaning assemblies suitable for use in centrifugal, hydroclone and other filtration systems.